


The Children of Winter

by TheDoctorin221b



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Matricide, The Long Night, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:05:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorin221b/pseuds/TheDoctorin221b





	The Children of Winter

Born in darkness and raised in the cold, harsh wasteland, the Children of Winter would’ve been great; kings, lords, ladies, and knights. But in a world covered in ice and snow, where winds froze your fingers off of your hands, people huddled in the last safe place and tried to survive. Titles lost their meaning, even the past was forgotten until only names and feeling remained. Winterfell stood through it all, amongst the desolate snowscape, a fire in the darkness, it was warm and it was hopeful.

After the Long Night was won, the Night King defeated at the hands of King Aemon, people thought that would be it for winter, but it has long been rumored that for every long summer comes an even longer winter. The last summer lasted thirty years so the people still alive got themselves ready for an even longer winter.

During one of the worst snowstorms of that winter, as the wind howled and the snow blocked out everything from sight and sound, the first child was born. During spring or summer, the girl would have been a great lady of the host castle, raised to become the mirror image of her fearsome diplomatic mother. But this was not summer, so the child grew used to the cold, enjoyed the way it nipped at her fingers and turned her cheeks a rosy red. When that happened the other children could often be caught staring, her red hair wild around her face as her face heated to an almost matching color.

The second child would have been king. He would have been groomed and taught and smothered into the role until nothing of the sweet chubby curly haired boy remained. But there was no kingdom to rule when most people are either dead or hiding within their own castles. So he made snowmen and had snowball fights with his friends. He blushed when the first winter child caught his eye and tried to use a wooden sword with words of encouragement. He ignored the voices in his head that everyone denied existed, he imaged that if he were king they would probably have gotten worst. The coin landed in the middle for him, the wrong genes but the right circumstances.

The triplets would have been the lord of a great castle, one that had once been feared in the West, a lady of a small but beautiful island far away from where the sea gleamed like jewels. The other would have been a knight, to please his warrior parents more than anything. They would’ve all hated it, their parents' wilfulness alive within all three of them, they wanted to be maesters and singers and artists. Winter had no need for these things, but their would-be homes were far away. So the trio was happy, they sang, drew, laughed and played with the two others. They were all free.

There was one more that was born that did not live long enough to see the spring. She had the strength and willpower of her parents, most of all her mother. The child could hold a sword before she could talk, or so her father liked to boast. But underneath, in the small moments when her parents were not around, she was gentle and kind almost to the point of naivety. The child that believed in the stories she’d heard around the castle, of endless fields of green grass and warm blue waters where you could swim without freezing. A child who saw a wolf in a snowstorm, a small girl with so much good in her heart that she went to follow the wolf, to bring home and keep warm. A child who’s only grave became the snow that fell atop her fallen body.

So the five children remained, they learned and grew within the walls of that castle. Eventually, as all growing people do, the first and second winter children grew closer than the friends they always had been. The girl who would have rule Tarth was married to the maester’s son under the frozen branches of the weirwood tree. Until one day all five teenagers awoke to see something they’d never in their lives experienced before. A steady dripping coming from the constant icicles that lined the outside of their windows. Spring had finally come.

With spring came new discoveries and before anyone knew the snow had melted to only a thin layer, trees began to bloom and birds returned to nest in them. The teenagers were astonished and shocked, still free for the time being, they ran through the newly green fields and explored the new wilderness around them. Until they were called home.

The responsibilities were beginning, the adults deciding, no one knew what to do just yet. That was when he arrived. The Queenslayer, kinslayer and bastard king. The names that had followed the young man the whole journey towards his remaining kin. He left his home a boy of nine and ten years and arrived a man of twenty, hair as yellow as the newly sprouting corn and eyes cunning and green. The only thing not perfect about the man was a new, jagged scar that spread from his just underneath his right cheek and stopped just underneath his right eye. He surveyed the courtyard around him upon his arrival, every eye in the castle upon him. He wore armor the color of his house and the sword of the evil brother he’d never met. In his right hand, he held a simple sack, a sack that oozed and smelt. With confidence he did not feel the wrongful king took two steps towards the king and queen, swiftly he knelt and upended the sack at their feet. As the heads of Cersei Lannister, Euron Greyjoy and The Mountain rolled to a stop he said loudly and clearly.

“Kings Landing is yours Your Graces.”


End file.
